World Without End

In this epic sequel to his 1989 saga The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett returns to the English town of Kingsbridge, a century and a half after the townspeople completed the building of their exquisite Gothic cathedral. On a cold November day in 1327, four children—Merthin, Caris, Gwenda, and Ralph—slip into the forest where they witness a killing, which will braid their lives together by ambition, love, greed, and revenge. This edition of Follett's "well-researched, beautifully detailed portrait of the late Middle Ages" (Washington Post) includes color photographs from the eight-part miniseries starring Miranda Richardson, Charlotte Riley, and Tom Weston-Jones.

"Eighteen years after Pillars of the Earth weighed in with almost 1,000 pages of juicy historical fiction about the construction of a 12th-century cathedral in Kingsbridge, England, bestseller Follett returns to 14th-century Kingsbridge with an equally weighty tome that deftly braids the fate of several of the offspring of Pillars' families with such momentous events of the era as the Black Death and the wars with France. Four children, who will become a peasant's wife, a knight, a builder and a nun, share a traumatic experience that will affect each of them differently as their lives play out from 1327 to 1361. Follett studs the narrative with gems of unexpected information such as the English nobility's multilingual training and the builder's technique for carrying heavy, awkward objects.... Readers will be captivated by the four well-drawn central characters as they prove heroic, depraved, resourceful or mean. Fans of Follett's previous medieval epic will be well rewarded."—Publishers Weekly